Fishermans Luck | Page 6

Certainly God must
be competent to govern a world in which there are possibilities of
various kinds, just as well as one in which every event is inevitably
determined beforehand. St. Peter and the other fishermen-disciples on
the Lake of Galilee were perfectly free to cast their net on either side of
the ship. So far as they could see, so far as any one could see, it was a
matter of chance where they chose to cast it. But it was not until they
let it down, at the Master's word, on the right side that they had good
luck. And not the least element of their joy in the draft of fishes was
that it brought a change of fortune.
Leave the metaphysics of the question on the table for the present. As a
matter of fact, it is plain that our human nature is adapted to conditions
variable, undetermined, and hidden from our view. We are not fitted to
live in a world where a + b always equals c, and there is nothing more
to follow. The interest of life's equation arrives with the appearance of
x, the unknown quantity. A settled, unchangeable, clearly foreseeable
order of things does not suit our constitution. It tends to melancholy
and a fatty heart. Creatures of habit we are undoubtedly; but it is one of
our most fixed habits to be fond of variety. The man who is never
surprised does not know the taste of happiness, and unless the
unexpected sometimes happens to us, we are most grievously
disappointed.
Much of the tediousness of highly civilized life comes from its
smoothness and regularity. To-day is like yesterday, and we think that
we can predict to-morrow. Of course we cannot really do so. The
chances are still there. But we have covered them up so deeply with the
artificialities of life that we lose sight of them. It seems as if everything
in our neat little world were arranged, and provided for, and reasonably
sure to come to pass. The best way of escape from this TAEDIUM
VITAE is through a recreation like angling, not only because it is so
evidently a matter of luck, but also because it tempts us into a wilder,
freer life. It leads almost inevitably to camping out, which is a
wholesome and sanitary imprudence.
It is curious and pleasant, to my apprehension, to observe how many
people in New England, one of whose States is called "the land of

Steady Habits," are sensible of the joy of changing them,--out of doors.
These good folk turn out from their comfortable farm-houses and their
snug suburban cottages to go a-gypsying for a fortnight among the
mountains or beside the sea. You see their white tents gleaming from
the pine-groves around the little lakes, and catch glimpses of their
bathing-clothes drying in the sun on the wiry grass that fringes the
sand-dunes. Happy fugitives from the bondage of routine! They have
found out that a long journey is not necessary to a good vacation. You
may reach the Forest of Arden in a buckboard. The Fortunate Isles are
within sailing distance in a dory. And a voyage on the river Pactolus is
open to any one who can paddle a canoe.
I was talking--or rather listening--with a barber, the other day, in the
sleepy old town of Rivermouth. He told me, in one of those easy
confidences which seem to make the razor run more smoothly, that it
had been the custom of his family, for some twenty years past, to
forsake their commodious dwelling on Anchor Street every summer,
and emigrate six miles, in a wagon to Wallis Sands, where they spent
the month of August very merrily under canvas. Here was a sensible
household for you! They did not feel bound to waste a year's income on
a four weeks' holiday. They were not of those foolish folk who run
across the sea, carefully carrying with them the same tiresome mind
that worried them at home. They got a change of air by making an
alteration of life. They escaped from the land of Egypt by stepping out
into the wilderness and going a-fishing.
The people who always live in houses, and sleep on beds, and walk on
pavements, and buy their food from butchers and bakers and grocers,
are not the most blessed inhabitants of this wide and various earth. The
circumstances of their existence are too mathematical and secure for
perfect contentment. They live at second or third hand. They are
boarders in the world. Everything is done for them by somebody else.
It is almost impossible for anything very interesting to happen to them.
They must get their excitement out of the newspapers, reading of the
hairbreadth escapes and moving accidents that